Blog

Our world is in constant flux. I think we like it that way. It makes us feel alive and allows us to stretch and also to complain. We like complaining, but that is for another day.

The level of upheaval in social media and digital marketing is something that we are becoming accustomed to. It is a good thing. Makes us nimble. Except when it doesn’t. Sometimes constant flux makes us panic and panic makes us pause and flap our arms a little.

One of the earliest skills I remember learning was the ability to crush panic in an instant and pivot quickly. I learned in my first real journalism job that when you panic, you lose time and when you are putting out a newspaper in a few hours time, there is no time to waste in panic-mode. This training has served me well. And because of this training, I’ve learned that the most valuable skill in our arsenal at this moment in time is the ability to pivot.

When you are quick to pivot, you avoid panic, you save time and effort and sweat and heartache. Pivoting is by far, the most valuable skill in our day. Question is: How can we learn to be better at pivoting?

Imagine tangible success

It’s tough to know when to pivot if you have no idea what you’re shooting for. This is beyond setting goals. This is about describing and documenting in real numbers or other tangible ways what success or winning looks like. If you do not do this, you will never know if you should be pivoting. The key to pivoting is knowing that it has to happen. If you have no idea that it needs to happen you will never do it and if you never do it, you’ll never get good at …read more

The beauty of social media is when global strangers connect and become neighbors. Where digital connections pass through smartphones, pad devices, laptops and more to bring people who would never meet otherwise into a space of not only daily connection, but in some cases, hourly.

As we reach forward to a new generation that is striving to connect everyone to this great platform called the internet, we see corporations rising such as Internet.org and Google Fiber. An internet connection in every home, in every land. Free wifi everywhere we go. Connection is increasing and it’s time for you, the small business owner, to take this community based platform serious.

If you are a plumber one of the first things you’ll learn is how to do a service call. You wouldn’t ever consider going into someone’s house talking about pipes, PVC and copper. No, your best foot forward would mean taking the time to have conversation, engage with the customers and service their needs as you do so. This same model works today brilliantly on social media.

The “Loving Your Customers” model that I have been teaching for more than 5 years now is not new and it’s not limited to just a brick and mortar business. The struggle comes in when a succesful business that knows how to truly care for people begins to believe that they must behave differently, put on an internet marketing front and try to become something they are not.

If you own a clothing boutique and you offer free hemming, fashion tips and even special bonus’ with every purchase, the customer will drive over an hour just to look around your store. People will linger through your clothing racks and they’ll enjoy the fresh smells of your boutique for one simple reason: they love being there with you. …read more

Before joining the team here at MailChimp, I worked at interactive agencies and as a freelance website designer. After we handed a finished website over to a client, they would be able to log in and edit their own copy through a content management system. This was great, but it was rarely the case with the email campaigns we managed. Most of the time, we managed lists, designed templates, and sent campaigns on the client’s behalf. If they wanted performance reports, we had to fetch them ourselves—the client seldom even had access to log in. Sound familiar?

I’m sure some agencies are never gonna give up total control over their marketing efforts, but I wish I could’ve helped our clients become more independent. Thankfully, MailChimp believes in empowering our users, and our collaboration features make it possible to work together with your clients without feeling like a monkey in the middle.

Set up multi-user accounts

Once you’ve created an account for your client, the first step is to hand over the keys. Visit Account settings > Users & account details to invite anyone from the organization that might want to help out. You can even choose access levels to limit what each user can do.

A single login can be used to access multiple accounts, so be sure to invite yourself and your agency coworkers. Using the same login to join all of your clients’ accounts will let you access everything from one dashboard and easily switch between projects.

Collaborate seamlessly

Your design requirements may necessitate crafting a completely custom email, but when you’re just getting started, we highly recommend beginning with a drag and drop template. They’re mobile-friendly and much easier for HTML-averse clients to customize themselves.

Once you’re working on a campaign, everyone looped in on the Design step …read more

Have you ever stopped to think about what people remember about you after they meet you the first time? Is it something intentional? Or is it different for every person? I’ve spent a considerable amount of time “working” on my personal brand. I say “working” with a pretty ridiculous amount of sarcasm, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

There is a ton of content out there on personal branding and frankly there is some pretty decent stuff out there. But I have a short-cut to building your personal brand and it all comes down to one thing.

What Makes You Memorable?

Seriously, I don’t care what you want to be an expert in or what your specialty is. At the end of the day, it comes down to whether you were memorable or not. And I have a little secret. Being memorable doesn’t come down to the words you practice for your speech, the great ideas in your blog posts or any of the other things that we think defines our brand. It comes down to what strikes people as unique and what stands out above everyone else in your space.

I remember in full clarity the first time I spoke at a larger social media conference. It was at the Inbound Marketing Summit in 2010. Believe it or not, Chris Brogan had enough faith in me to take a chance and gave me a speaking slot. (Thanks Chris!) I sat through a full day of sessions and got on the stage right after lunch. Needless to say, minds had been stretched to their consumption limits and I realized that I had to do something a little bold to stand out because energy was waning. The audience at IMS was a push the limits casual but insanely smart group. It had a …read more

Google AdWords is undoubtedly a viable medium for attracting qualified leads. But to fully take advantage of the opportunity, you need to track and monitor for both online and offline conversions. Read the full article at MarketingProfs …read more

Search campaigns perform significantly better when they are managed alongside social campaigns, according to recent research from Marin Software. Read the full article at MarketingProfs …read more

Since its release in late 2007, MailChimp’s A/B testing tool has been a huge success with our customers. In fact, over 200,000 split tests were sent in 2013 alone. Using subscribers as lab rats is still both fun and educational, but we realize that some of you might not know how to get started with […]

These days, lots of different kinds of people love MailChimp’s easy-to-use features—and we love them, too. But we’ve got a soft spot for developers. MailChimp was originally built for developers, and we’re developers ourselves. It’s an audience we enjoy serving, and (like last time) one we kept in mind while working on the app’s most […]

In this episode of the Music Marketing Manifesto Podcast, CD Baby founder Derek Sivers, joins us to discuss how he transitioned from musician to owner of the world’s largest distributor of independent music. He also discusses some of the defining patterns and traits he observed in their best selling artists. To listen in just go […] …read more

There is something crucial that most of you are missing on your websites.

In the age of social media we are all focusing on Twitter, LinkedIn, G+, and Facebook and, we’ve forgotten an important basic: Your online press kit – the asset that makes it easy for others to publicize your brand.

In many ways, your online presence is equivalent to creating your own online billboard. If you are in control of your website and your social channels, and you have a good grasp of 2-way conversation mastery, your online billboard will have the exact messaging for your tribe (potential customers and fans).

However, if this is not the case, here are some predictable scenarios: